Design Jam

On March 14, I attended a Design Jam hosted at the TripAdvisor (Viator) office in San Francisco. It was the first of what I hope will be many successful and educational design jams. 

Designers at the Design Jam receiving the design challenge.

Arriving right on time, I was actually pretty nervous. I don't mind speaking in front of crowds or working in small groups, but meeting new people is not easy. Fortunately, everyone I spoke with was friendly and excited to take part in the jam.

After a quick bite to eat and some really tasty snacks and beverages (thanks, Viator!), the challenge was introduced: Not enough Americans vote. The challenge went on to say that this lack of participation has a number of causes including:

• Inaccessible polling stations, due to lack of transportation, inability to get time off of work, physical disability of voters, or lack of multilingual accommodation.
• Feeling overwhelmed or uninformed about candidates or measures on the ballot.
• Apathy, or a belief that vote will not effect outcome or that results will not impact their lives.
• Lack of awareness of when voting occurs and what options for participating are available.
• Physical or digital security concerns relating to potential fraud or voter intimidation.

We were instructed to pick ONE of the issues and design a digital interface that might help to address the problem. Deliverables could be in the form of sketches, storyboards, wireframes, or, in the case of one group, high fidelity mockups. We had one hour.

We would be evaluated based on a number of guidelines:

• Does it solve the chosen problem?
• Is it feasible or something that could be done?
• Is there a clear thought process or strategy?
• Is it creative?

The large group (something like 80 people) broke into groups and got to work! I joined up with Chijioke Amah, Anna Curtis, and one other young woman whose name unfortunately escapes me at the moment, sorry! We snagged a Viator breakout room and started brainstorming.

We discussed which aspect of the design challenge we would like to tackle, ultimately deciding on the first: Inaccessible polling stations, due to lack of transportation, inability to get time off of work, physical disability of voters, or lack of multilingual accommodation.

Our initial ideas were based around the premise of getting people to the polls by helping people to find time in busy schedules to vote but this wasn't bringing us the solution we wanted so we shifted tactics: bring the polls to the people.

Busy working professionals and people with a disability or mobility issues would all benefit from having the polls come to them instead of the other way around.

The idea that we ran with was to develop a chat bot that would engage registered voters in the days leading up to the election and ask them if they would like to have their ballot picked up. Chijioke suggested a simple, text-based or SMS-based chat bot would work well as it would not depend of people having smart phones and had the potential to work on more devices in more areas. 

We made a number of assumptions. First, chat bot would be reaching out to registered voters via a cell phone number and language choice they provided when they registered. (Registering people to vote is another problem entirely) Second, SMS-based chat bot would require additional input from voter than would a data-driven, location based system, and that voter has tech savvy enough to use basic texting. Third, voter is mobile enough to access locations that are within a small walking distance, say outside of their house/building or within one-two blocks. And finally, our chat bot's AI is "intelligent" enough to recognize a wide array of responses.

Rough 'Did you vote?' Chat Bot mockup

Having settled on our chat bot, we developed a number of personas but the most fitting for the group we would be presenting to was Busy Jenn, 33, working single mother who can't take time off work to vote and isn't willing to give up time with her kid before or after work. She is comfortable with technology and utilizes public transit.

The chat bot would engage Jenn in the days leading up to the election and ask her if she had voted yet. If she had, great! That's that. If she hasn't, would she like her ballot picked up? If she responds that she would, the chat bot would help her to identify a time and location that would work. All Jenn has to do is drop her completed ballot with the official pickup vehicle at the location and time arranged.

We envisioned increased engagement with individual voters and the possibility of creating human interaction as soon-to-be-voters wait at their assigned location to have their ballot picked up and their vote counted.